by M. D. Cooper
Rika’s tone was clipped, as though she was concentrating on several other things at once.
Chase knew he was grinning like an idiot, but he added a laugh to it, as well.
“What is it?” Ona asked staring at him with hope-filled eyes.
He let out a whoop and thrust a fist in the air. “That, my most excellent bridge crew, was Rika! Passing coordinates to the nav system.”
Ona bit her lip and nodded vigorously, while Garth let out a victorious shout.
Potter added.
Garth tensed, shifting his focus back to his console. “They’re back!” he cried out. “Right on top of us.”
“They?” Chase asked turning to the holotank of the battlespace, still lit up by the beams and rails firing between the two Marauder ships and the Harriets—though less from the Star Hawk as each second passed.
Then he saw them. Just ten kilometers above the Fury Lance were the two Nietzschean ships that Garth had spotted earlier. The cruiser and the dreadnought.
“Put it up,” Chase said. “And get us close to the Star Hawk, again. We need to shoot that bird down. Nuke it if you have to.”
As he spoke, a tall woman appeared on the main display. “Hello, Captain Chase. I’m Colonel Adira; Vargo sent me to help.”
“He what?” Chase asked, then realized that every question he was about to ask had already been answered: the woman was a mech, she was aboard Nietzschean ships—ships that registered as having stasis shields—and she could only have gotten their location from Vargo Klen, just as she’d said. “Nevermind. We need to get that Harriet and its friends off our back so we can send evac down to the planet to get Rika.”
“Rika’s down there?” the mech asked. “Send me the coordinates. I can grab her in a jiff.”
“You’ll need something big,” he cautioned. “She has an SAI core that needs to come up, and it’s five meters cubed.”
A broad smile split Colonel Adira’s lips. “Don’t worry about that. We have dragons.”
* * * * *
“I can’t believe it,” Rika exulted, grinning inside her helmet like an idiot, and wishing Leslie could see it. “They’re coming. They’re fucking coming. Thank stars. Piper, we’re getting you out of here!”
A round pinged off her armor, and she realized that the Nietzschean soldiers had made it past the drones’ blockage, and were spilling into the bowl.
“Aw, shit,” she muttered “These guys aren’t smart enough not to shoot at Piper.”
Without another word, both Leslie and Rika leapt from the catwalk, sailing over the long drop leading to the black hole lurking far below Piper’s node, before running across the wide bowl in opposite directions, drawing the enemy fire away from the SAI.
Trapped between the bots and the Niets, Rika worried they may not be able to hold out until evac arrived. Chase hadn’t exactly said it, but she knew that he didn’t have a shuttle handy that was large enough for Piper’s node. She realized that asking for some backup while they waited would have been wise, and was about to reach out again, when she spotted movement in the shaft above.
Something had blotted out the dim light of the stars.
Rika could only give it a cursory look as she fired on a pair of drones and the brave, but foolish Niet that had charged her, but whatever was in the shaft was falling…and fast.
Seconds later, it burst into the chamber, veering away from Piper’s node and instantly diving toward the Nietzschean soldiers. The blue-white flash of an electron beam shot out of its mouth, and tore into the enemy soldiers.
From its mouth?
Rika’s mind finally registered what she was seeing. It was a dragon…a mech dragon. Now that she understood what had flown into the chamber, the rough shape of a Skyscream became apparent, but it had been modified to look like the mythological creature of old.
It had a tail, wings, even clawed feet. A long neck protruded from the body, and—as Rika had already witnessed—beamfire poured from its mouth.
What was even more amazing was that a mech sat astride the metal beast, holding a massive war hammer aloft as the creature swept across the space.
The dragon-riding mech swung her hammer at a drone, energy surging around the weapon as it smashed the drone’s casing, as her mount wheeled about, laying waste to the drones with its beams and claws followed by a barrage of missiles that launched from under its wings.
Two more of the mechanical beasts dropped out of the shaft and joined the fray, as the first dragon with the mech atop it swung toward Rika and settled on the ground.
“Rika, I presume?” the woman asked as she leapt off the dragon and landed before her.
Rika hadn’t realized it at first, but the rider’s armor was stylized to make her look rather demonic—even her helmet had long, curved horns.
“That’s me,” Rika said, glad her helmet hid her slack-jawed expression. “You are?”
“Colonel Adira, at your service! This here is Prentis. Captain Chase said you needed a pickup, and I have just the mechs for the job.”
“Dragons?” Rika asked, still adjusting to what she was seeing.
“Nice to meet you, Colonel Rika,” Prentis-the-mech-dragon said with a low rumble.
“Well, they don’t call my company Adira’s Demons for nothing. We get a lot of pleasure in scaring the shit out of Niets. Plus, the K1Rs really wanted to fly, so we worked these up.”
“Effective,” Leslie praised as she approached, firing at a single drone that tried to rise from the surrounding carnage. “So, we ask for shuttles, and Chase sends you?”
“Why take a shuttle when you can ride a dragon?” Adira asked with a shrug and a laugh.
Leslie offered her hand. “Captain Leslie, glad to meet you. I can’t think of any reason to take a shuttle when dragons are an option.”
“As much as I’d love to sit around and chat all day, we should probably get the hell out of here,” Rika said, eyeing another wave of drones that were emerging from the walls, much to the joy of the dragons, who roared with delight as they charged the machines.
A sigh came from the AI.
Realization dawned on Rika.
* * * * *
Four minutes later, they were airborne. The dragon Rika was astride carefully cradled Piper’s node in his clawed talons as they rose through the kilometer-long shaft below Adira and Leslie. They broke the surface in seconds, and Leslie’s dragon nearly collided with a Nietzschean fighter.
The K1R-turned-fantastical-beast took off after the Nietzschean craft, firing its beams and launching missiles, while Leslie shot at the enemy from its back.
Rika looked up to see the point of light that was the Fury Lance approaching Delta Moon, its beams lighting up the sky as they tore into a Harrier that was dropping down toward the dreadnought. Another dreadnought and cruiser were nearby, and the Republic was moving around the enemy ship, hitting it in the engines.
Rika snorted.
Rika couldn’t help but laugh at the sight. Flying through space on the back of a mechdragon felt as safe as being naked in a sandstorm, but that didn’t lessen the exhilaration in the least.
She was about to reach out to Chase, when a notification flashed in her mind.
- QuanComm Network Available -
Rika didn’t waste a second reaching out to Tanis, only to find that her QC’s pairing with the Field Marshal had become disentangled. However, a link to the Khardine Communications Hub was online, though only a small percentage of the rubidium atoms were still entangled. Her message would have to be short and sweet.
She took a moment to gaze up at the thousands of points of light moving around Epsilon, the thousands of Nietzschean ships waiting to descend on them, while considering her message. She’d never reached out to Khardine before, and hoped a simple message would reach the right people with the right result.
[Rika needs fleet. Send now.]
She added in her coordinates, and bit her lip, praying that someone was listening.
Seven long seconds later, a single word came back: [Acknowledged.] Then the QC blade went offline.
REUNION
STELLAR DATE: 10.23.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: MSS Fury Lance
REGION: Epsilon, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
The dragon sailed into the Fury Lance’s forward docking bay, and Rika leapt from its back while the mech was still gently lowering Piper’s node to the deck.
Across the bay, Chase was running toward her, and Rika barely remembered her feet touching down before she barreled into him, the pair falling over and rolling a dozen meters before coming to a stop.
“Stars,” Chase grunted, disentangling his arms to pull Rika’s helmet free as she triggered its release. “Mech hugs are hard.”
Rika only laughed as her lips met his, and she wrapped her arms around him, crushing her body into his, feeling their steel bodies scrape and grind against one another.
She knew that she had to get up, had to be the commander, but she didn’t want to let go of Chase. Not until she realized that half the mechs in the bay—plus the three dragons—were all standing around her, did she release him and struggle to her feet.
“Nice,” Leslie said with a grin, her helmet also removed. “I hope Barne doesn’t hug like that when we finally meet up again. I’m not as tough as you.”
Rika whistled.
“Adira.” Chase offered his hand to the tall mech who had also removed her helmet, her long, ebony hair flowing free. “Thank you for saving Rika—”
“I don’t know that we were saved,” Rika interrupted with a wide grin. “More like—”
“Rika,” Leslie gave her a level stare. “We were under siege, atop a black hole, on a moon that was waiting to be pulverized and then eaten by said black hole.”
A sigh slipped past Rika’s lips. “OK…I guess we were rescued.”
Just as the doors began to close, a shuttle slipped through and fired its braking thrusters, settling on the deck a few meters away.
Before the clamps had locked on, Heather leapt out, rushing to Rika. “Colonel! Stars, I’m glad you made it back safe and sound! Chase was so mopey without you.” She wrapped Rika in an embrace while glaring over her shoulder at Chase. “Did you hurt my girl?”
“Who? Rika?” he asked, frowning as Patty and a group of mechs disembarked from the shuttle and rushed toward the group.
“The Lance!” Heather roared, letting go of Rika to bend over and stroke the deck. “Killing Niets was fun and all, but I swear, I’ll not leave you in a battle like that again.”
“Let’s get to the bridge,” Rika said, gesturing for the group to follow her.
Leslie sent Rika a warm smile.
Rika gave her a final appraising look before turning and walking through the ship to the bridge. While she did so, she kept half an eye on Colonel Adira, and the other half on the scan feeds of the Nietzschean ships forming up beyond the slowly deteriorating orbits of Epsilon’s moons.
While she was grateful for the woman showing up, she hoped that Adira hadn’t signed her own death certificate by joining with the Marauders.
“Adira,” Chase said after a moment. “I was trying to ask this back in the bay. How is it that you got so close to Delta Moon so quickly?”
“Oh, that?” Adira asked with a grin. “We’ve been dreaming of hitting this place for ages—though we’d never have stood a chance without your shields, or,” she turned to Rika “your apparent ability to make close friends with strange AIs.”
“Which means?” Chase asked.
“We had a map of the dark layer around here. It was old, and I’ll admit it was a serious risk to make that jump, but…I dunno…it felt right. I wouldn’t attempt it again, though. Not with whatever your AI did to those moons. Probably stirred the dark matter pot all up.”
“Then we’re going to have to fight our way out of here,” Chase decided.
Rika considered their options, coming to the conclusion that bringing the fleet into a close formation, which would limit the number of Nietzschean ships that could fire on them, was the best bet. They’d loop around Epsilon, boost hard, and then punch through the enemy lines.
It was risky, though, and her calculations showed that not all the Marauder ships would make it.
She hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
The group reached the bridge, where Ona and Garth stood clapping as Rika entered.
“OK, OK,” she said, holding up a hand. “We can celebrate and backpat when we all make it out of this.”
“Are you thinking that we should try to get in a tight formation, and attempt to punch through their line?” Adira asked echoing Rika’s earlier thoughts. “I think we could do it. But from what
I understand of this stasis shield technology, if they bring enough fire to bear, your smaller ships may not be able to hold it off.”
Rika nodded. “Yeah, that’s a real worry. Either way, we should move into an orbit away from the mess that’s building out there.” She gestured to the holodisplay, which showed Mistlea Station slamming into Delta Moon, almost smearing itself across the surface as explosions flared into space.
“I’m coordinating with my ships,” Adira said. “They’ll take helm direction from you.”
“Thank you,” Rika replied as she scoured the scan readings.
“Not yet,” Rika said, her eyes scouring the space beyond the Nietzschean ships. “I’m hoping for a surprise.”
Chase’s eyes narrowed, then he snapped his fingers. “The QuanComm! Did you get out a message for help?”
She shrugged. “Maybe? The QC was damaged, but I got a short message through a few minutes ago. I received an ‘Acknowledged’ back, but I don’t know if that just means they got my message, or that we’re going to get rescued.”
“QuanComm?” Adira asked.
“Ma’am?” Garth called out. “The Niets are hailing us.”
Rika glanced at Adira. “I’ll explain later…if there is a later. Chief, put it on.”
A man appeared on the holodisplay, his face red, and his upper lip quivering.
“Admiral Degan,” Rika greeted with an innocent smile. “Sorry that we broke your…everything.”
“Rika.” The man ground out the single word. “You’ll die for this. You’ll—”
She held up a hand, as the most beautiful sight she’d ever witnessed appeared on the scan display.
“You can save it, Admiral. I’ll be accepting your surrender now.”
Admiral Degan opened his mouth to speak, but then his face grew ashen, and his mouth closed, his lips pressing into a thin line.
“They’re still arriving, but I already count just over a thousand ships,” Rika said with a grim smile as she watched wave after wave of Allied ships appear on the far side of the Nietzschean craft. “You may still outnumber us, but all those ships have the same shields as my fleet. How do you think you’ll fare?”